The Four Conditions of Happiness: Life in the open air, Love for another being,Freedom from ambition,Creation

I have no friends, I only have accomplices now. On the other hand, my accomplices are more numerous than my friends: they are the human race.

If absolute truth belongs to anyone in this world, it certainly does not belong to the man or party that claims to possess it.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a 'fiancé,' why she had played at beginning again. Even there, in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Every stone here sweats with suffering, I know that. I have never looked at them without a feeling of anguish. But deep in my heart I know that the most wretched among you have seen a divine face emerge from their darkness. That is the face you are asked to see.